


Roots

by T Verano (t_verano)



Series: Soyaluna [1]
Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: 2012 TS Secret Santa Drabble Days prompt "Hanukkah", Angst, Gen, Hanukkah, Post TSbyBS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2020-04-05 18:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19046386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: Jim contemplates the past, the present, and the future.





	Roots

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2012 TS Secret Santa Drabble Days prompt "Hanukkah"

The object in the pawn shop window caught Jim's eye as he was about to walk past, and he found himself stopping to look at it more closely.

It wasn't that there was anything remarkable about it. Jim wasn't an expert, by any means, but it looked like any other menorah to him, nothing out of the ordinary.

That it made him think of Sandburg didn't really make sense. He'd never known Blair to celebrate any of the Jewish holidays. Naomi either; Naomi "embraced the universe," she'd told Jim once, but she clearly preferred embracing the less conventional byways, some of them from outer space as far as Jim was concerned.

So why was he standing on a sidewalk in midtown, staring at a menorah and thinking about Sandburg?

Maybe it was because he didn't really _know_ whether Blair had any Jewish roots. He'd never asked. All he had was a vague recollection at the back of his mind from a conversation during a stake-out, something about Blair staying with an Orthodox family during Hanukkah one year when he was a kid.

Had there been a wistful note in Blair's voice when he talked about that visit? If there had been, was it because of the roots Blair was missing out on, or roots he wanted to put down himself?

Jim sighed. He found himself wondering about a lot of things these days. How much of who Blair was right now, who he might have been, had been decided by others? Naomi had tried to make him stop working with Jim. She'd also tried to make him a celebrity, a Nobel Prize-winning millionaire.

Jim had tried to make him into a cop.

Bull crap. Jim could hear Blair saying that; could almost see him reflected in the store window, glaring at Jim and almost vibrating from the strength of his conviction. He wasn't anybody's doormat, even if Jim — and Naomi, at times, as far as Jim was concerned — had tried their best to make him into one.

Sandburg always found a way to do what he wanted, to be himself. He might talk a good game about being a wimp, but he never gave up on anything he really believed in. He just got stubborn — and creative.

Like now. His solution wasn't the solution Jim had wanted, short-term. But long-term…

Maybe it was time for Jim to rethink his position on that.

====================== 

Jim turned up his collar against the chill December breeze and tucked the package under his arm as he left the pawn shop.

He was probably a fool, but he felt more optimistic than he had in months. If Blair came back — came _home_ — before Hanukkah, he'd come home to something that said — that Jim hoped would say — _I want you to put down roots._

As someone once told him, he needed to learn to listen. The next time Blair called, he was damn well going to try.


End file.
